Letting Loose
by Jackimee
Summary: A drunken and brutally honest voicemail from Abed makes Annie rethink her role in the group. Troy fills her in - what really happened that night?


**Letting Loose / Bittersweet**

"Guys, I think I'm gonna sit this one out," Annie said wearily, shuffling out of her bedroom already in her PJs. Her arms were crossed tightly as if she were cold, and she was quite pale.

"You look sick," Abed said, and Annie frowned.

Troy donned his 'aww' face. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"I don't know," Annie sighed, "I have a terrible headache and kind of a stomachache, and I just feel generally sick."

Abed put his hand on her forehead and Annie crossed her eyes looking up at it.

"Feels like a fever," said Abed as he reclaimed his hand, and he tilted his head. "Are you gonna be okay?"

"Yeah, I think I just wanna go to bed."

"You sure?" Troy asked. "We can stay home with you if you need us to."

Annie smiled weakly.  
>"Thanks so much, guys, but I'll be fine."<p>

"Alright, we're gone then," said Troy as he and Abed left for the door.

"Feel better Annie."

"We'll miss youuuuu—"

The door shut, and Annie returned to her bedroom to promptly go to sleep.

* * *

><p>"We should call Annie," Britta slurred. "Tell… tell her we miss her."<p>

There was laughter and affirmation amid the noise.

"I wouldn't," Troy said politely. "She's trying to get some sleep."  
>"Howbout a voicemail?" Shirley suggested, and Troy shrugged in consideration.<p>

"Alright, I got it," Troy volunteered, as he patted his pockets in search of his phone.

But right as he found it, Abed chimed in, "I got mine." He waved his phone between more than a few empty shot glasses. "I'm… I'll do it."

Troy knew how drunk Abed was because of the shortness of his speech. Because Abed naturally spoke with rapid accuracy, he did not slur as soon as most: When he lost the ability to remain coordinated at his normal pace, his speech just became sloppy and broken up.

"Abed…" Troy said from across the table. "You sure you can do this, man?"

"Of course," said Abed. "It's already ring—uh, recording. Hmm-hmm," he laughed, smirking.

Troy raised his eyebrows at Abed's drunkenness and tried to listen to the message, but he ended up getting caught in the rest of the group's amusing antics.

Back at the apartment, Annie's phone vibrated once within her pocketbook a few feet from her bed. She did not stir.

* * *

><p>Annie woke up a few hours later feeling hungry, so she rolled out of bed to make some toast. She realized she felt a lot better, besides the fatigue. As she sat at the table and took a bite of toast, she heard two voices outside of the apartment door, one of which was too loud for this hour. Annie turned to the door as it opened, and Abed stumbled in, leaning on Troy.<p>

"—and I heard they're making a video game out of the movie, and a movie out of that… Hey Annie," Abed rambled. Annie smiled, chewing, and waved her toast.

"How ya feeling, Annie?" Troy said busily, as he headed toward the kitchen counter, leaving Abed leaning dependently against the wall.

Annie swallowed her bite, and responded. "I'm alright. Doing better."

Troy fished out his keys, phone, and wallet from his pockets and emptied them onto the counter. "Awesome," he responded more genuinely, flashing her a rushed smile. "Alright, how are you holdin' up there, Abed?" He asked, walking back over to his friend, who wasn't paying attention.

"Look how pretty Annie is," Abed said, observing. Annie tried not to beam.

"Yes, she's very pretty, Abed," Troy laughed, steadying his staggering friend and leading him toward the blanket fort.

Abed continued, "Nobody looks that pretty when it's this late and they're sick… 'cept Annie—" he hiccupped, "—and Audrey Hepburn." And with that, he was hidden within the fort.

A minute later, Troy emerged, sneering. He sat down across from Annie looking mildly stressed. Annie was grinning.

"I love Drunk Abed!" she laughed.

Troy chuckled. "Yeah, I let him have the bottom bunk." He seemed to be innocently bragging about the responsibility he'd taken on.

"Looks like you guys had a fun night," Annie said courteously. "Did you drink with them?"

Troy hesitated.

"It was… an interesting night," he said, nodding continuously as if trying to convince himself that was a proper response. He remembered that a question had been asked. "And uh, yeah, just a couple drinks. But that was hours ago… Did you get Abed's message?"

"Wha- oh, no, what was it?"

"I don't even know," Troy said, amused. "We were gonna leave you a voicemail saying we missed you. But I'm sure how it went; he was already pretty drunk."

Annie laughed, shaking her head.

"That should be interesting." She yawned. "We should listen to it tomorrow… I'm going back to bed."

They exchanged goodnights and Annie returned to her room. Troy closed his eyes and sighed, putting his face in his hands, and he sat there for quite a while before turning in.

* * *

><p>"We should make Abed some nice hangover food," Annie said cheerily, late the next morning. She and Troy were reclined, half-watching a muted infomercial.<p>

"Yeah!" Troy responded with lazy excitement. "Like… bacon donuts."

Annie giggled. "…if he ever gets up… Oh, why don't we listen to his message while he's still sleeping?"

She got up eagerly and retrieved her phone from her room. She returned, almost skipping, and Troy was now kneeling giddily in his chair. Annie sat down and started the message.

"—_already ring—uh, recording."_

Annie and Troy exchanged a highly amused glance as they heard the silly-sounding nasal laugh come out of the phone.

"_Hey Annie. We're… I'm drunk. …No, I'M not drunk at all! Haha!"_

They tried to muffle their laughter at Abed's poor attempt at sarcasm.

"_We're at, uh, the Red Door… L street… mm-hm."_

They listened closely to the sound of Abed getting momentarily distracted by a separate conversation, and then the voice returned more clearly again.

"_We miss you. But this changes the… uh, the group dynamic." _He cleared his throat. _"You're not… you're not here, so… we can all be ourselves, and, uh, have fun and—" _There was a pause and a sigh, as if he had just sipped something. _"_—_let loose. …usually you're the one who's… uh, not prohibiting… I mean not, not allowing us… to have fun. You know what I meant…"_

Troy's heart wrenched as he looked at Annie and saw her expression.

"_End of message-"_ A robotic female voice came from her phone, and Annie pressed the end button several times.

"Annie…" Troy said, frantically racking his brain for what to say. "He didn't mean that…"

But her lip quivered and her eyes fluttered, filling with tears. But this was not the type of crying Troy had seen her do before, when she'd wanted pity. This time she was heart-broken and ashamed of the realization that the group was better off without her. She turned away from Troy and stood up just after her tears spilled over, and she walked into her room and closed the door silently.

Troy sat in his chair, tapping his fists together lightly. He nodded to himself when he decided he'd be able to comfort Annie, and after gathering his confidence, he got up and knocked on her door.

He heard her quiet sobs.

"Annie… come on," Troy cooed, trying to be as gentle as possible while still opening her bedroom door uninvited. Annie was lying on her side with her arms folded painfully across her chest and her knees curled up toward her. Her face was crumpled and tearful, and Troy had to brace himself in order to remain collected and effectively comforting.

"Annie, do you know what happened last night?" Troy asked quietly, sitting on the side of Annie's bed. Annie said nothing – just continued to blink out tears. Troy tilted his head with a knowing kindness and admitted, "It was a terrible night." He shook his head. "_Terrible,_" he repeated.

There was a pause. Annie sniffled and wiped one of her eyes, taking a moment to regain her voice. "Wh-what?"

"Yeah," Troy nodded. Something about his expression brought Annie back her presence of mind. He was smiling, but not in a happy way… and yet it wasn't being faked, either. It was… bittersweet.

Annie sat up and looked at Troy curiously.

"Annie, listen," Troy said. "Yeah, there was some truth to what Abed said. When you're around, you keep us from totally letting loose. We all know you expect a lot from us, and that keeps us in check. It's not that you keep us from having fun, you just keep us from going too far..." He paused and noticed that Annie didn't really look any less upset. "…Which is a_ good_ thing," he added.

Annie sniffed dismissively. "Well, obviously Abed thinks otherwise," she said, looking away.

"He didn't mean what he said;" Troy said, "he was drunk."

Annie responded hastily, "Yeah, which is how we know he _did_ mean it. He wasn't censoring his opinions. Haven't you ever heard about alcohol being like truth serum?"

Troy did not seem to falter in response to her point.

"Alright," he said, "maybe he believed it when he said it, but that was before everyone got so messed up. There's _no way _he believes it now."

Annie watched his face fall with a memory. "What happened?" she asked, straightening.

Troy sighed, appearing to relive the stress of the night before. "Well…" he started. "First, Shirley got drunk. And that's… you know, really bad. Since she's a recovering alcoholic and all…"

Annie frowned, worriedly, and Troy continued. "Jeff drank too much and ended up violently sick for most of the night… Pierce got arrested for public urination... Britta started hangin' around with some really creepy dudes up at the bar, and somebody slipped something in her drink…"

Annie's eyes fluttered in horror. "Oh my _god_…" she said.

"Everyone's okay now…" Troy said. "…as far as I know." He looked down and shut his mouth tightly, and Annie tried unsuccessfully to meet his eyes.

"…what about you and Abed?" Annie asked. "What happened with you two?"

Troy scoffed and shook his head. "…Abed gets pretty reckless when he's drunk. He doesn't stand a chance in hell at filtering himself or knowing how to act. Some guy was pretty close to beating the crap out of him, and of course I had to prevent it." He paused and looked at Annie, who was frowning now with a layer of empathy over her self-pity. Troy sighed hard. "Man… I was trying my butt off to be the responsible one, but I suck at it. I let everything go wrong."

"None of that is your fault…" Annie said gently.

"I guess," Troy said. "I did my best, but it still feels bad. It just goes to show you what happens when you're not there." He raised his eyebrows at her in an I-rest-my-case face. "Oh-" he added, "and let's not forget the other thing that came out of that shitty night: …Abed left you a really horrible, totally-not-true voicemail. See? He disproved his own theory thing."

Annie found the same bittersweetness emerge on her own face, and Troy leaned closer to her. He spoke with a hushed voice as if afraid Abed would hear what he was saying.

"You know how upset he's gonna be when he hears what he said to you? He does _not_ deal well with hurting other people. And if he gets all not-respondy, I'd bet a trillion dollars that you'll be the one helping him and putting chapstick on his mouth. Right?" Annie smiled sadly, and Troy rubbed her back solemnly. "See, he needs you, Annie… We all do."

Annie smiled with her eyes, and she nodded.

Troy nodded back.

The two were still nodding ten seconds later, which made them both laugh a little. "Alright," Annie said, getting up and approaching her door, followed by Troy, "let's go make some bacon donuts."

As they headed for the kitchen, a groan sounded from within the blanket fort. They looked at each other as they listened closely to Abed:

"Gahhh. My head."

A sheet flipped open and a disheveled Abed shuffled out, squinting behind sunglasses. He grunted. "What happened last night?"


End file.
